"The knife of historical relativism...which has cut to pieces
all metaphysics and religion must also bring about healing. Only we need
to be thorough. We have to make philosophy itself an object of philosophical
concern."

"The human being knows itself only in history, never through introspection;
indeed, we all seek it in history. Or, to put it more generally, we seek
what is human in it, such as religion, and so on. We want to know what
it is. If there were a science of human beings it would be anthropology
that aims at understanding the totality of experience through structural
context. The individual always realizes only one of the possibilities in
its development, which could always have taken a different turning whenever
it has to make an important decision. The human being is only given to
us at all in terms of its realized possibilities."
- Wilhelm Dilthey